At the Players Championship, a Cast of Unusual Suspects Moves to the Top

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — As the world No. 1 Jason Day extended his lead during the weather-delayed second round of the Players Championship, his closest pursuers included Alex Cejka, who has withdrawn from two PGA Tour events since January because of injuries, and Colt Knost, who has not recorded a top-10 finish in 15 starts this season.

Within striking range of Day at the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course, where a premium is placed on hitting the fairways, was Jonas Blixt of Sweden, who came into the week ranked 154th on the tour in driving accuracy.

He need not have fretted. The 2015-16 season has proved that all that glitters on the PGA Tour is grit. The roster of winners includes Kevin Kisner, who won for the first time in his 109th PGA Tour start, and Jim Herman, who secured his first tour title in his 106th. If Trojan Nation had been a golfer trying to win his first tour event instead of a horse at the Kentucky Derby trying to win for the first time, he would not have been considered a long shot.

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James Hahn winning the Wells Fargo Championship after missing eight cuts in a row.CreditStacy Revere/Getty Images

What were the odds that the defending champion, Rickie Fowler, would miss the cut while Cameron Tringale, who has not cracked the top 40 in his past 10 Tour starts, would vault into contention? Or that the world No. 2, Jordan Spieth, would birdie the final hole in his second round and still miss the cut while Knost, with a final-hole bogey, would equal the course record with a second-round 63?

On the PGA Tour, anything is possible. Who would have bet that Rory McIlroy, a four-time major winner and a former world No. 1, would remain stuck on 11 tour victories, while Brian Stuard, who started the season with conditional status, secured his first tour title in his 120th start?

Or that Vaughn Taylor, who had not won in over 10 years, would deny the World Golf Hall of Fame member Phil Mickelson his fifth title at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am?

Then there is James Hahn, who prepped for his victory at the Wells Fargo Championship this month by missing the cut in his eight previous starts. Never mind yardage books, the tour caddies ought to carry copies of the best seller by the University of Pennsylvania psychology professor Angela Duckworth on the power of passion and perseverance.

As it happens, Hahn’s caddie, Mark Urbanek, is a voracious reader. His motivational toolbox is filled with devices he picked up from books and magazines.

“It doesn’t have to be about golf,” said Urbanek, who also is a pretty good reader of people. Looking for commonalities, he studies people from all walks of life who are extraordinary. One thing Urbanek has observed is that people who are successful tend not to dwell on their failures. It is a trap that can easily ensnare golfers, who have to return to the same course after a bad first round and try to orchestrate a different outcome.

“If something bad happens to you, it’s easy to remember that, but from the other side of the bag, it’s our job to try to get them to remember the good things,” Urbanek said. “You have a choice how you want to remember things at the end of a hole, at the end of a shot, at the end of a round.”

Hahn said Urbanek was constantly reminding him that he had the power to change his future and his destiny by changing his thought process. And Hahn says he does not employ a sports psychologist?

He laughed and sheepishly acknowledged the obvious. Urbanek is the next best thing to a mental coach.

“I need to start paying him a little extra now,” Hahn said.

Hahn considered not playing at Quail Hollow — the site of the Wells Fargo event, in Charlotte, N.C. — because in three previous starts there he had failed to break par in nine of 10 rounds. Urbanek talked Hahn into entering the event by framing the week as a fresh start. He described it to Hahn as the kickoff to the second half of the season.

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Brian Stuard at the Zurich Classic, his first win after 120 starts.CreditGerald Herbert/Associated Press

“When he starts talking about last year, I’m like, ‘Whoa, you’re a different player now,’ ” Urbanek said. “Instead of talking about what happened last year, I’d rather talk about how we’re going to attack the course this year.”

On the PGA Tour, the only thing that can change faster than the weather is a player’s fortunes. A well-struck shot can hit a sprinkler head and bounce over the green, setting off a chain reaction of high numbers and missed cuts. Summing up his eight weeks in the weeds, Hahn said, “It was just a combination of one bad putt, one bad drive, one bad hole, one mud ball, one bad break that snowballed.”

Late in the second round on Friday, Hahn drained a 30-foot birdie putt on his 13th hole, the par-4 No. 4, and it was as if he had been given a massive dose of serotonin. He felt happy over every putt after that, confident that he would not miss. Hahn saved par by making a 12-footer on the fifth. On his last hole of the round, the ninth, he missed an 8-footer for birdie.

“We had a perfect read, I hit a perfect putt and it didn’t go in and I’m like, ‘Oh my goodness, I’m the worst putter on tour,’ ” Hahn said after signing for a 73, which left him at four under par. “I’m obsessing over that right now, whereas 30 minutes ago I was thinking I could make anything in the world.”

If nobody’s mind is a steel trap, everybody is capable of contending on the PGA Tour. How perfect that the tour’s signature event is providing the writing on the dimpled ball as a cast of character actors fall in behind the sport’s leading man.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page SP8 of the New York edition with the headline: A Cast of Unusual Suspects Begins to Rearrange the Names at the Top. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe